Virginia Registrar Cautiously Implements New Voter Purge Law

Virginia is one of two states to pass a law that allows it to compare voter rolls with neighboring states in an effort to maintain voter rolls. Cross-checking voter rolls, a potentially unreliable method of list maintenance, has already begun in Loudoun County where the registrar reportedly plans to hold off on purging voters before the election to avoid unintended disenfranchisement of eligible citizens.

According to a Leesburg Today report, “[t]he Loudoun County Registrar’s Office will wait until after Election Day Nov. 5 to investigate the status of each of the [2,176] voters flagged as duplicates. Loudoun General Registrar Judy Brown said she doesn’t want to move too quickly and strike legitimate voters from the rolls.

“‘The state board cross checks the voter registration and sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don’t,’ she said. ‘We want to do our due diligence and our research to verify we’re not removing someone for no reason.'”

Virginia is one of 21 states to join the interstate matching agreement, most of which are “Republican-led states that have focused on voter and election laws in recent years. Supporters say the steps are needed to protect the integrity of the voting process, but many Democratic leaders say there is little evidence of voter fraud and such measures are a burden on elderly, poor and minority voters,” Leesburg Today reports.

In 2013, interstate database matching policies were proposed in six states and adopted in Virginia and Indiana. Learn more about this year’s voter list maintenance proposals and laws here.